An adventure set in the lofty heights (and dangerous depths)of Hindu thought. Insider tips? Relax, dissolve your preconcieved notions & get chanting.And by the way, dont believe all that you hear! A rudimentary knowledge of Sanskrit, Tamil and a fleeting accquaintance with the puranas and other such texts might come in handy.
Wisdom takes courage.

Saturday, June 30, 2012

The idea of pratyAhAra or sense withdrawal is conveyed in this the 133rd mantrA of the thirumandiram. Using the metaphor of the tortoise which escapes danger through withdrawal, the sage highlights the necessity of sense control to achieve a steady mind that can accept conflicting experiences without losing calm.

Who there be who, like
our Lord, distinct know
The great and the small, the difficult and the facile?
They, unto tortoise, drawing in senses five under the shell,
They heard and saw This and Next, all impurities dispelled. I.1.21.133.

Com - who, like our Lord,
distinct know The great and the small, Like our Lord siva, who pervades
everything and is present within the atom as well as the mighty universe, the
difficult and the facile? Who there be, and thus knows the immense greatness
and the incredible minuteness (of the great and the small) alongside each
other, who else is there in this world who could experience and ‘know’ (these
conflicting experiences) thus with equanimity? They, unto tortoise, drawing in
senses five under the shell, Those sAdhakAs (those practising the path shown by
the sage) who with a steady mind practise the withdrawal of the sense
instruments by arresting the outward flow of the five senses and turning it
inward, like the tortoise, They heard and saw This and Next, all impurities
dispelled. Will reach the state where they will be able to see the greatness
and the smallness and experience them faultlessly (i.e. without the taint of
duality or contrary experiences).

# Here the sage is
instructing the reader in the necessity of the yOga practise known as
pratyAhArA or sense withdrawal for the purpose of attaining a calm and steady
disposition. It would be well to understand here that the siddhars are in
complete agreement with the tantric and vEdic concept that one must be
sufficiently disengaged with one’s idea of ‘doership’ and the idea that one is
the ‘experiencer’. Hence chitta shuddi or internal purification is an important
first step to building a steady ground for realisation to take root. ChittA is
an aggregate term – when the manas (mind), buddhi (intellect) and ahamkArA
(ego/identity principle) are spoken of together the word chittA is used to
describe it. It is in this realm that the idea of ‘I am doer’ and ‘I am
experiencer’ is present. It is here that ‘me’ and ‘mine’ originate. When there
is not enough clarity in these faculties, then the idea that ‘I am a limited
jIvA, caught in the transmigratory cycle of life and death and powerless in the
hands of fate’ takes root firmly. This clouds judgement regarding this
phenomenal world of name and form and one thus gets firmly bound by delusions
and performs wrong actions and suffers unhappiness.

pratyAhArA or sense
withdrawal is the method through which the usually outward flow of the sense instruments
(ears, skin, eyes, tongue and nose) is checked and then by practise reversed.
This would enable the mind to understand and experience without bias. To act
without motive.

The sage uses the
example of the tortoise, which when confronted by danger, reacts to protect
itself by withdrawing its limbs and head (4+1) into the hard shell. Similarly,
he indicates here that the sAdhakA or adept must practise the method of
withdrawing the five senses inward to protect himself from the danger of the
external world. After the first two lines of the verse which describe the
equanimity with which siva engages with this world, the second two lines are
pointing the reader in the direction in which even he might find the means to
reach such an equanimity of perception. Through sense withdrawal, the adept
will be able to gradually reach a place where he will be able to view the great
and the small without conflict. To put it in other words, the idea here is to
reconcile the opposing forces to achieve the steady state. This is the ancient
alchemical concept which is symbolised by the Chemical Wedding.

Thursday, June 28, 2012

With a view to serve humanity and lift us higher from our limited perspective, the siddars developed and practised methods to elongate life span. So that over many hundreds of years, they could continue to live in the physical body and further their compassionate service. The nature of their deathlessness and the reason for their birthlessness is described in this, the 132nd mantrA of the thirumandiram.

In this world they
received the Deathless Way great
In this world they attained the Birthless End great
The Gift unique of inseparateness from the Sabha pure
The ineffable rapture, the glory beyond reach of words. I.1.20.132.

Com - In this world they
received the Deathless Way great The siva yOgis who as described in the
previous mantrA have attained to the pure state, through their yOga have
obtained the merit of continuing to exist in a physical body (immortal) without
ever departing this physical world to further their ideals of being of service
to mankind (by instructing the deserving candidates into the pure path of siva
yOga). In this world they attained the Birthless End great And even though they
remain in this physical world and continue to commit actions of all kinds for
the service of humanity (i.e remain engaged in what appears to be worldly
activity), they are free from the taint of their actions and thus have obtained
freedom from the cycle of births. The Gift unique of inseparateness from the
Sabha pure Such yOgis are blessed with the great fortune of being forever
immersed in the radiance of the holy feet of the divine dancer siva. The
ineffable rapture, the glory beyond reach of words. And being ever absorbed in this
rapturous state, they remain detached from and undistracted by the rest of the
world; instead they remain fixed in the maunA (silence) of the heart and
experience continually and at all times the consciousness of siva.

# In the above mantrA, I
have taken the liberty to go a bit beyond the literal translation to sort of
describe the intent of the sage better and more accurately, while within the
body of the verse. Now to see some of the unspoken but obvious things from the
above verse – the siva yOgis have perfected their physical bodies, through the
practise of yOgA and also kAyAkalpA techniques and have thus rendered it
immortal. This their body now is not subject to death as in the case of the
rest of us. Through correct understanding of the different tattvAs and through
the control of prAnA (vital air) and vIryA (semen) and through various mantrAs
and the effects of guligAs (pills produced from different rare and magical
herbs etc and animal products and even metals) they have made adamantine their bodies.
This is not due to their fear of death or due to their attachment to life or
the sensory pleasures of this world. The yOgis are masters of sense control, it
is for altogether another reason that these masters have decided to remain in
this physical body eternally and continue to exist in this physical world of
mortals. The reason for conditioning their bodies so, the sage reveals here, is
to enable them to continue their ideals of serving humanity by leading them to
a higher level of existence. The siddars have seen the truth, they have
understood reality, the one supreme essence and becoming perfected, they desire
to pass on their teachings and methods to other deserving individuals. They
have also continued to disperse the merits of their tapas and their knowledge
gained from experimentation with shifting the boundaries of mind and body by
way of their teachings and by intervening miraculously in the lives of many.
Thus, the siva yOgis are deathless.

The second line of the
verse points out that these deathless yOgis are also birthless! On observing
the siddars who exist in the physical body for long periods of time and who
while in the body continue to perform the various activities of the living,
quite like the rest of us it is easy for us to wrongly identify their motives
to be the same as ours. The sage makes that clear here by pointing out that
even though to all external appearances it is as if these sages are engaged in
worldly activity (by way of serving humanity, etc), in reality it is not so.
Due to their practises they have already arrived at the realisation of reality
and have thus become ‘detached’ or ‘disengaged’ from the grasp of the external
world. All the scriptures make clear that the root cause of bondage (to the
cycle of birth and death/ delusion) is attachment. Clearly cognising the truth
that though the world of name and forms appears to be, it really is not, and by
remaining ever engaged in meditation of the supreme, they have elevated
themselves into the realms of detachment. They are not ‘entangled’ in the world
of name and form as we are and are ever aware of the One behind all
appearances. Thus they are also free from future births by being disconnected
to the fruit of their actions (i.e. gone beyond the idea of doership).

It is important and
interesting to note that the sage mentions in the final line of the above
mantrA that these siva yOgis remain in the state of maunA or silence. This
quite often refers to actually remaining silent – i.e. not speaking. There are
many sages and siddars who are known as mauni or silent saints. Perhaps, being
established in the nAdAntA state as they were, they had transcended the need
for words altogether. Or perhaps, they were aware of the many faults of words
and wisely refrained from using them. The yOga sutra and the Upanishads all
maintain that we lose a lot of our life force through speech. Not to mention
the amount of hurt and upset or offence our spoken words cause to other beings.
Thus silence or maunA is a practise that is encouraged in the path of yOgA both
to increase the life force and also to practise self-discipline and virtues of non-violence,
truth etc. And it is self-evident that even if the sage does speak words and is
not a mauni, they still remain merged within themselves in the ether of the
heart cave absorbed in the state of silence. They are supremely focussed on the
dance of siva in the subtle ether at the crown of their heads, and as it were
they remain undistracted by the noise and the pull of the external world.